The
following is a letter of a type that I often receive from the hard-line
Bush supporters who believe that the president is anointed and should
be beyond criticism in regard to his administrative policies:

“Just
remember, all authority is set in place by God. God obviously set President
Bush in a higher place of authority than a lowly sheriff, so when you
speak of stupidity you might start your search closer to home (The people
who elected a loud mouth liberal)”

The
people who elected me to seven consecutive four-year terms in office,
I think, would be rather amused at this characterization of me as a liberal.
I would guess that it was just the dirtiest word that the writer could
think of to describe one who has been critical of his hero, George Bush.
Some strange thinking here, but fairly typical of the letters that I receive
from those who think the president can walk on water and who believe that
he functions as a potentate who is unconstrained by law and is immune,
or should be, to criticism from lowly peons such as I.

Unfortunately
for these people, I do not happen to subscribe to this type of hero worship.
I think that Mr. Bush is an absolutely ordinary man who is possessed of
no extraordinary perceptual abilities. If he is divinely guided it certainly
has not been evident throughout the six years that he has been at the
helm of the nation. Too be sure he has been immersed in some fairly rough
waters during this time, most of which were of his own making. This is
what often happens when one ignores the signs that indicate that an all-ahead
full mode will sink the ship, and plows ahead anyway.

How
some people have come into possession of the idea that Mr. Bush is clairvoyant
and gifted with divine wisdom is anybody’s guess. Maybe they visited a
guru on the mountain who imparted such knowledge to them. Whatever the
case, it is a wrong assumption. That he has no such gift is indicated
by his unwillingness to deviate from the disastrous policies, which have
caused the nation to list so badly. All indications are that if he persists
and stubbornly maintains the course that he has set, the ship, in this
case the nation, will founder. Indeed the vessel wallows at the present
time, and a sinking appears imminent.

Mr.
Bush’s wars for democracy, and his impolitic pursuit of the same, are
crumbling around our ears. If there has been good news on that front I
haven’t seen it. Even Fox News hasn’t come forth with any gems of hope
in that regard, and it certainly cannot be said that they are anti-Bush.
There just isn’t anything to report other than more bombs, more sneaky
guerilla warfare attacks, and more dead Americans. Not only does the president
not have a crystal ball, which enables him to look into the future, he
has no grasp of history. The Korean and Viet Nam wars are not that distant
in the past, that he should be devoid of the knowledge that to fight limited
wars on the enemy’s terms just is not the way to proceed. Apparently our
political leaders are hard learners in this regard. If the death of the
one hundred twelve thousand Americans killed in those wars did not provide
an example of the kind of wars that we should avoid, there is no hope
for us, because our politicians are either masochistic or they are just
plain dumb.

Ah,
some will say, but what about President Bush’s domestic policies? What
about them? Have they been something to brag about? Those who think so
apparently totally disregard his immigration policies and his absolute
and unforgivable disregard for the security of our borders. A refusal
to honor one’s oath to secure the borders of the nation against all invaders
does not a hero make.

The
president’s deliberate refusal to enforce border security bespeaks arrogance
and his statement; “Hell, if they’ll cross the big bend, we want ‘em.”
speaks to a simple mind. It is absolutely incredible that the leader of
any country would utter such an asinine statement. It invites criminals,
deviants, terrorists, subversives, sexual predators, and freeloaders to
come into the nation and prey upon the citizenry. The fearful consequences
of such an ignorant mindset have come home to roost.

The
economic strain that has been placed upon the nation by an influx of twenty-one
million uninvited and unwelcome parasites is enormous. And the social
damage is incalculable. Our culture has been forever altered and perverted.
Millions of ordinary American workers have been displaced. The black community
has been especially hard hit in this regard. The schools, which were already
a tremendous burden to taxpayers due to the stupid policies of the federal
and state governments’, have been pushed to a state of near collapse by
illegal aliens. Diseases, which had long been eradicated in this country,
are making an alarming comeback thanks to the illegal hosts who carry
them into our midst. And as if we didn’t have enough of our own criminals
we have added to that number exponentially. Illegal Hispanics comprise
28 percent of the prison population, while making up 4 percent of the
population of the country. And if that is not bad enough the president,
and those in congress who think like him, must think that our homegrown
gangs are not virulent enough. Their stupidity in regard to immigration
has enabled Latino gangs to lay siege to the city of Los Angeles, and
to spread their tentacles across the land.

The
critic who authored the letter with which I opened this column has expressed
his belief that since God set in place George Bush as president it is
sacrilegious for me, or any other, to criticize him. Well, God set in
place King Saul, King Ahab and Jezebel, Adolph Hitler, Joseph Stalin,
and Nero the persecutor of Christians. By an extrapolation from the writer’s
viewpoint it would seem that for one to be critical of such leaders is
to be in conflict with the scriptures. I have read the rendering of God’s
word by Paul the Apostle. And I am mindful of the fact that we have been
admonished by the word to be obedient to lawful government, and that we
should pray for those who are in positions of authority. I did not find
any strictures regarding being critical of political leaders. Maybe if
the citizens who were under the rule of the aforementioned despots had
been critical of their activities early-on untold millions of lives could
have been saved and mountains of abject grief could have been avoided.

My wife,
who was unfortunate enough to have been born into the Third Reich under
Adolph Hitler, has related what it was like to be dominated by such a
regime, and how blind obedience and reverence for the Fuehrer made it
possible for this maniac to rise to power and to hold onto that power.
That she survived the bombings and the horrors of the war to relate these
observations was providential. There was a time when the rise of this
maniacal tyrant could have been thwarted, but people were too enamored
by his political charisma and verbal expertise to mount a campaign to
do so. Later, when he had complete control it was too late. Still he would
not have been able to maintain his murderous control over the nation without
the acquiescence of all too many German citizens who had a blind allegiance
to him. Criticism was not allowed and to participate in such could cause
political incarceration and death. Even political jokes were forbidden
by the state. How were these restrictions on the people enforced? The
answer is with the help of blindly obedient Germans, who informed on their
neighbors and reported every minor criticism of the Fuehrer and his regime.

These
minions delivered into the hands of the tyrannical government many thousands
of innocents who were deemed to be unpatriotic by these rabid Hitler supporters.
To be critical was to be unpatriotic, and to be unpatriotic to the dictatorial
regime was unlawful and punishable. I respect the right of this letter
writer to express his opinion, but you can be absolutely sure that I emphatically
and with deadly seriousness disagree with his opinion.

But,
we should not worry about any of the preceding. I have the solution in
the form of a letter from another of my critics. His criticism of my columns
is related below:

“Maybe
it is because age has taken away your strength to tote a weapon in defense
of the Constitution or the mental capacity to become enraged, but I find
your whining and cowardice disgusting. If you want to cry in your coffee
do it in private. The rest of us have a battle to fight in this country
and it is not over, nor has it even begun.”

So you
see this “hero” is going to load up and ride into battle for you and for
me, while we cowards hide in the brush until we can be delivered by his
mighty hand. I await his rescue that is if he survives his valiant effort
against the armed forces of the United States government. After all a
real man does not use words, a real man goes down with guns blazing. Good
luck, cowboy, you’re going to need it.

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I’ll
continue to be critical of the unwise actions of our political leaders.
How long that continues depends on whether or not enough blindly loyal
citizens finally enable a complete tyrant, such as Hitler, to completely
seize control of all of our freedoms. Perhaps the cowboy will prevail
and save my bacon before that happens.

Jim
Schwiesow is a retired sheriff with 46 years of law enforcement service.
He served with the Unites States Army with the occupation forces in post
war Berlin, Germany, and has a total of nine years of military service,
which includes six years in the U.S. Army Reserve.

His
law enforcement service includes: three years in the military police,
fifteen years as an Iowa municipal police officer, and twenty-eight years
as the duly elected sheriff of Sioux County, Iowa.

Jim
has written a number of articles, which have been published in various
professional law enforcement journals.

My
wife, who was unfortunate enough to have been born into the Third Reich
under Adolph Hitler, has related what it was like to be dominated by such
a regime, and how blind obedience and reverence for the Fuehrer made it
possible for this maniac to rise to power and to hold onto that power.